Purple Flowers - N.E. Kiullczar

For S.

Men like me, we go to hell.

And men like you, well they don't go to heaven,

but they sure go someplace else.

Men like me wake at two in the morning gasping for air,

woken by dreams of our cough-syrup-sweet mothers

back home in our cold hometowns.

And we dress for third shift out of Boston,

faces pale in cracked, foggy mirrors.

And we wish we were men like you.

And our fingers beg for cigarettes, our stomachs ache for a strong drink,

as we labor on at jobs we gained when we abandoned the potential of brighter futures.

Hands narrowed and crushed and bent by lumber, metal, cement, marble, tiles.

While we daydream of the poison circulating our blood,

imagine it seep into our beloved men like you.

We shrink from the blistering light that scorches our skin,

though we are the ones who fastened it in place,

and we could turn it off whenever we please.

And we fear it might burn you too,

but on the off chance it’s the only thing keeping you warm,

we do not.

Men like me remember the summers back in high school

spent behind sketchy alleys.

Our cocks in the mouths of other sad, fair-haired boys

high on ecstasy and lust,

as we both moaned and cried like animals into the fragile night,

afterwards sobbing like children into the crooks of our elbows.

Cursing ourselves when we wished those fair-haired boys

had been men like you.

And we walk out along Main Street on those same summer nights,

passing men there was no mystery as to why we recognized them.

And we buy bottles of gems called Adderall, Valium, Xanax, Molly, Morphine.

And we let ourselves recede gently into chemical oblivion,

so that in the softened dark we may dream of men like you,

imagining the burn of your angelic skin against our own,

if only you were lying beside us without ailment.

We move through the homes of men like you

as if we are trespassing somewhere we have been invited.

Because an infection only comes to a wound with open arms.

And when we leave, we wipe our hands on our jeans until our palms bleed,

and check the locks twice,

still feeling guilty for knowing the layout of your house

and the map of your mind.

And we always will.

Men like me are hated by the boys wearing camo,

with girls spread wide on the covers of their porno magazines.

And we wish we could hate them,

as they holler “hey faggot!” from the stoop of a liquor store in Rochester.

And we want to yell back that yes,

we know what kind of men we are,

and we wish to God in his heavens to be men like you instead.

And we are beaten unconscious time after time,

till the boys have had their fill of ridding the world of one more purple flower.

And we bleed out in Harlem, Manchester, Waterloo, Nantucket, Denver.

And we die black and blue with an ache in our chests

and no God to welcome us home.

And our last thoughts are of our darling men like you.

And our funerals are attended by men like you,

who weep for us day and night,

even though we gave you nothing but damnation.

And we would weep too, if we could.

Men like me, there is no doubt we go to hell.

Our names are slurred and dulled

until they all mean the same damn thing.

And we know in our hearts and our groins

that we deserve to burn.

But tell me, my friend;

where do men like you go

if not hell nor heaven?

Because we know this is wrong,

men like me, we do.

But we still press your soft hips beneath our rough skin,

and let our filth seep into you,

as we chase even a moment of enlightenment laced with drunken sweat.

And we stay with you through the morning

and talk until dusk like philosophers in Greece.

And when we leave you,

you let go unbeaten and laughing,

as if damning yourself were a mercy on us.

Now tell it, please, to men like me;

will our bruised ghosts haunt you into nothingness?

For your eyes shine too clearly to be subject to sin,

your voices still breathe angel songs learned in church

before you learned the alphabet in school.

Yet you must still endure the punishment earned

for every damned moment you spend staring

into the eyes of men like me.

And once you leave where we cannot follow,

let the place you end up lack the burning of hell

and dullness of heaven.

Let sun-kissed girls crown your head in flowers

whose color you shan't be punished for.

Let the image of grit, bruises, dirt, slashes, kisses,

on the skin of men like me

fade from your head into obscurity.

Let all purple flowers die,

and let men like me go to hell alone.